Jaune's Baby
by Aetheling
Summary: All Jaune needed was a little help designing his weapon, he had no idea what kind of monster this would unleash!


**A/N:** Hello, everyone! This story was written for my fellow writer, Lightningstrxu, as payment for a bet on Discord. They supplied a prompt, and this was the creation. Please, check our their stories: Trapped just reached its conclusion, while I also serve as beta for Last Resort.

Thank you for reading, and please enjoy Jaune's Baby!

* * *

Locked away in his bunk on the ship, Jaune considered his options carefully as he turned page after page in his gridded sketchbook. For the past month or so, he had been considering making some improvements, and had tried sketching out some of his ideas. He liked a lot of them, he thought he could even afford some of them, but there was one major problem.

He had no idea how _make_ these changes come about.

Once upon a time, he would have soldiered on stupidly, ignoring the glaring fact he needed and could easily get help. He settled a hand on the small pack at the foot of his bunk, feeling the edges of the metal within; someone had taught him better, though. So, Jaune did the smart thing, shutting his booklet and rising to his feet.

The small ship carrying himself and his friends from Sanus to Anima rocked heavily beneath him, and he struggled to keep his feet. He'd been struggling to keep his stomach until a day ago, but the body can only fight so long before it accepts its fate. Nora and Ruby were bunked almost as far away from he and Ren as possible, which left him to walk down the dark gangway for quite some time. Ren and Nora had taken to watching the night horizon up top, but he and Ruby usually stayed below, so he expected to find her. Steadied against the wall, Jaune banged on the metal door a few times.

"Ruby, can I come in?" He called at the locked portal, waiting to hear a response. He could faintly make out scrambling, possibly a quiet "Hang on!", and the door was shortly pulled open. Ruby was dressed in her pajamas, a black top with rose-print white pants, and had what he suspected was gun oil smudged on her cheeks and hands. It was almost midnight, in the middle of the ocean, and Ruby was doing weapon maintenance in her PJs. He wasn't surprised in the least.

"Hey, Jaune?" Ruby said, likely wondering what he was doing over so late.

"Hey, can I come in? I need your help with something." Ruby nodded quickly, stepping over so he could fit through the narrow portal. Sure enough, Crescent Rose was broken down into its component parts on the far bed, while Magnhild was in a similar state on the nearer: he could faintly hear music buzzing from Ruby's headphones as well, but the small girl rushed over to turn them off.

"Sooo, whaddya need help with?" She asked, sitting on the edge of her bed, careful not to disturb the parts behind her. Jaune was envious of the way she moved easily in the ship, as he inched to the one chair in sight, but he did his best to not focus on the injustice of it all. Instead, he offered his notepad to her.

"I've been working on some designs, and I wanted your opinion." Jaune briefly saw a flash of something dangerous in Ruby's eye before she snatched the proffered paper from his hands. She practically tore off the cover to get to the ideas hidden below.

"Weapons." Ruby said in a low voice which had Jaune fast regretting this particular choice. "You're designing weapons: upgrades for your sword." She'd flipped through a good third of his ideas already, eyes flying across the page.

"Yeah. I want to bring a bit more to the fight, ya know? But, I don't know _how_ to really do this, so I came to you." Jaune had been studying his boots as he said that, but when the rustling of pages fell silent, he looked up. Ruby was watching him with wide, teary eyes. The way her silver orbs trembled had Jaune thinking he'd somehow insulted her: should he not have worked on those sketches first?

Ruby threw herself at him, wrapping hands around his back and burying her face in his chest, near squeezing the life out of him. "Thank you!" She squeaked in a high, emotional voice from just above his stomach. "I had no idea, but I'll do it!" She kept speaking, but Jaune couldn't make out the words through the cloths.

He was a little uncomfortable with how excited Ruby was, but weapons _were_ her thing.

The girl pulled back, pacing the four steps between himself and the bed while studying his pages. "Okay," she eventually began, "You've got two ideas going on in this: ranged, or more melee. These first few ideas are all rifle shifts?" Jaune nodded an affirmative.

"I based them off Milo." He was very proud of the fact he didn't break down crying at the mention of her weapon; for a few days, the right shade of red had left him weeping. When Ruby _ripped the pages out_ , though, Jaune nearly dove for them.

"I like the thought, Jaune, but it doesn't suit you: I've seen you at the range." He grumbled silently as he picked up the discarded pages. He hadn't been _that_ bad, had he? He'd done about as expected for a rookie, at least Pyrrha had said…

Ruby took no note of his collapsed mood, yanking out several more pages carelessly. "Nope, you should go with the additional strength in melee. Between your aura and your armor, you're already better suited for it." Ruby set down his pad and withdrew a massive pad of her own nearly as tall as her. She plucked several pages, which were like massive sticky notes, and began to stick them on the wall. Jaune had retreated to his chair, trying to get a hold of himself again.

"Using your shield for additional material is a good idea, it means you won't have to adjust to any more weight…" Ruby had started expanding his simple sketches into proper schematics, occasional splotches of oil marking her hand's progress.

"Yeah…" Jaune squeezed his knees, forcing himself to sit straight and to watch the proceedings. Once they were done, he could go back to his room and let it all out. Ruby asked him a variety of questions as she worked: how often he'd trained two-handed, if he had any preferred combat stances, his experience with other kinds of weapons beyond swords. As he answered, she would make annotations on the weapons, sometimes pulling them down altogether. She rejected his lance idea, approved of the axe.

Nearly an hour later, the walls were left featuring a greataxe, two greatswords, and some kind of club. Nora had walked in twenty minutes ago, but Ruby had immediately chased her off, yelling about "private time with Jaune", which he was sure wouldn't come back to bite him in the butt tomorrow. Ruby had been thorough in her work, that was for sure: the walls were littered with calculations of the necessary material, how the change in balances could affect his stance and combat style, even possible changes to where he positioned his belts for minimal draw speed! At the moment though, she was running a whetstone down her scythe's blade, staring up at the wall.

"We've made some real good progress, Jaune." _Shhhhhink._ "It's one of these designs, I know it." _Shhhhink._ The sound was really intimidating, and her nonchalant expression as she sharpened a five foot length of steel only added to the effect.

"So, should we just pick one?" He asked. Ruby shook her head.

"No," _shhhhhink_ , "you don't just pick a weapon like that." _Shhhhhink._ "They're a part of you, an extension of your soul." _Shhhhhi-_

The sound cut off abruptly as Ruby hopped from her spot, dropping it behind her and deftly stepping close to him. Very close. Her face took up nearly his entire field of vision.

"Ruby?" He asked in a scared voice.

"Shush, and stay still, Vomit Boy." Ruby said back in a near whisper, massive eyes boring into him. She inched closer, and Jaune found himself plagued by a wonderful, terrible memory.

" _Oh god, is it happening again? I'm not ready! Should I start, or does she want to? I should just leave, I'm not ready for this! Yang will kill me!"_ Ruby brought up her hand, lifting his chin slightly. It was warm and soft, and he could feel the grease it left behind. Unbidden, Jaune's hands began to reach up for Ruby's waist.

"I got it!" Ruby cried, hopping back excitedly and turning towards the walls. Jaune, hands still hovering where Ruby's hips were, watched dumbly as she tore down three of the designs. Ruby stood in front of the second of the two swords, hands on her own hips and stance wide. "This is the one, Jaune, I know it!"

"Bwah?" Was Jaune's eloquent response.

"Yup! Extension of our souls, remember?" She said over her shoulder, once again hard at work with the design. "All it took was a bit of soul searching, and I can guarantee you that this is the right design!" With some finishing touches, Ruby gently detached the paper, rolling it and sliding it into a carrying case he hadn't even noticed her withdraw.

"Oh. Okay." Jaune was infinitely grateful it _wasn't_ what he had thought, but now he'd gone and worked himself up over nothing. Well, as nothing as Ruby apparently staring into his soul could be. Rising from his chair, Ruby thrust the paper towards him.

"Whatever you do, don't lose this. Got that, Vomit Boy?" Jaune stuck his tongue out at her then, accepting the case as she ushered him towards the door. "Now go to bed, you're up way too late!" She said as if she wasn't the one that kept them up.

"I appreciate the help, Ruby." He mumbled through a yawn, suddenly aware of how late it is. She waved it off as he stepped into the gangway.

"Don't thank me yet, Jaune! Thank me once we're on land, and we can make our baby."

'Wait, what?!" Ruby shut the door in his face, leaving Jaune's confused question to echo down the hall. Once again, he had very bad feeling about asking Ruby for help.


End file.
